BBC apologizes for broadcasting abuse allegations

LONDON 
For the last month, the BBC has been heavily criticized for not airing allegations of child sex abuse committed by one of its star hosts, the late Jimmy Savile. Now it is in crisis because it did broadcast claims against a former senior politician that turned out to be wrong.

In a humiliating retreat for one of the world's leading broadcasters, the BBC apologized Friday for airing a report featuring accusations from a child abuse victim which the victim later retracted.

The BBC also said it was suspending investigations at "Newsnight" - its premiere investigative program. That's the same show under investigation for not airing a report on Savile.

Friday's apology stems from a BBC report aired last week that indicated there were child abuse allegations against an unnamed senior politician from the Margaret Thatcher era. The network did not name the politician, but Internet chatter identified him as Alistair McAlpine, a Conservative Party member of the House of Lords.

Angry about the rumors, McAlpine came forward Friday to denounce the claims as completely false. His accuser, abuse victim Steve Messham, then apologized and said he had identified the wrong man.

That led the BBC to say it apologized "unreservedly" for broadcasting the report. The apology came after McAlpine's lawyer threatened legal action.

The BBC's apology came after a week of claims and counterclaims in the spreading abuse scandal. Since accusations surfaced last month that renowned BBC host Savile sexually abused young victims for decades without being exposed, scores of adults have come forward to claim that their own allegations of sex assault in the past were ignored.

With the country reeling over how to respond to a torrent of new abuse claims, Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday warned the media and the public of the danger of shredding the reputations of innocent figures.

"Effectively, you are casting lots of aspersions about lots of people without any evidence," Cameron said. "You have to be careful you don't start some sort of witch hunt against some people who might be entirely innocent."

Cameron's words, coming a day after he was handed a list on live television of high-profile figures named in Internet rumors as possible sex offenders, took on greater significance Friday after it emerged that McAlpine was wrongly accused in a case of mistaken identity.

Last week, "Newsnight" aired a report on allegations related to sex abuse in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. The program interviewed abuse victim Messham, who claimed that previous reports into the Wales scandal had failed to examine abuse by someone he described as a senior Conservative Party figure at the time, but did not name.

On Friday, McAlpine said he was likely the political figure referred to in the "Newsnight" report. McAlpine, who was Conservative Party treasurer in the era of Thatcher, insisted he had never been involved in the abuse of children and suggested that he had been the victim of mistaken identity.

That turned out to be true.

Messham, the abuse victim, later Friday told the BBC he had offered "sincere and humble apologies" to McAlpine for wrongly identifying his abuser.